Archives
October 2006
Oct. 31, 2006 - When it Rains it Pours ... |
Pity the poor folks at Zillow ... first they face an FTC consumer complaint (legitimate or not, it still exists) and now the folks at Realty Thoughts have released eppraisal.com, their online home valuation tool. At first blush, there are two noticeable differences:
1) For better or worse, the site is far less elaborate than Zillow. No property maps, none of the extra bells and whistles (some of which are the cause of Zillow's headache with the NCRC.) Just a relatively barebones platform.
2) Unlike Zillow (and avoiding another of the Z's possible headaches), eppraisal provides a range of property values versus one magic value.
One of the primary criticisms about Zillow, both from the recent complaint and in the general real estate realm, is the way the public has perceived their "zestimate." Zillow has said all along that these estimates should only be used as starting points when determining a home's value, but if you provide somebody with one pat number they're likely to believe it as fact.
There is one thing that both Zillow and eppraisal.com have in common - there's no guarantee the numbers are going to be close to accurate. Zillow has estimated my own home at around $295K the last time I checked. Eppraisal now has raised the range to around $325K. I'll take either figure, but I also know that the market value of my home is a bit less than the z's guess and a lot less than eppraisal.com's.
For more on the release of eppraisal.com ...
Eppraisal.com Kicks Zillow While They're Down from the Future of Real Estate Marketing.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes
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Oct. 31, 2006 - Happy Halloween!! |
For those who take ghoulish delight in such things ...
The Real Estate Tomato hosted the first-ever Halloween Carnival of Real Estate. Top prize goes to Active Rain's Bill Williams, and there are another nine hauntingly delightful posts to enjoy as well.
Maureen McCabe and the Columbus Best Blog chimed in with her own compilation of Halloween posts.
And I decided to join in with some advise to tonight's trick or treating masses.
Amazingly enough, after a few days of Halloween posts, all is quiet on the sellsius front. Apparently the boys took the wrong colored pill. Follow the white rabbit, gentlemen, and godspeed.
And for the rest of us ...
P.S. A special hello to my mom, who inevitably will respond and tell me what a great post this was. Happiness may be a warm puppy, but validation thy name is "a Jewish mother."
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes
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Oct. 30, 2006 - Futbolistas at the Gate! |
This evening I had to take a short trip down Loop 101 to pick up press credentials for tomorrow night's friendly between América y Chivas de Guadalajara at Cardinals Stadium (note to University of Phoenix ... send a naming rights check to my attention, even a few dollars will do, and I'll change the reference on my blog.)
 For those not in the know, I've been writing free-lance sports articles for the Associated Press since the fall of 1992, when my parents invested about $200 in a Radio Shack TRS-100 - used only by a handful of students and a legion of newspaper reporters - and I started covering Arizona State Basketball and the Phoenix Roadrunners of the International Hockey League.
This afternoon I got the call asking me to cover the game, the first live soccer match at the three-month-old stadium. It's the Mexican League's second visit to the Valley in just under two years; in 2005, the league staged a playoff doubleheader at then-Bank One Ballpark in downtown Phoenix.
Cardinals Stadium features about 37 color-coded parking lots (fuchsia go left, periwinkle head south) and, naturally, I chose the wrong one in the dark this evening which led me to Gate 3, where a few dozen fans were waiting for a glimpse of the players on América. Somehow, a few people got inside and proceeded to open the door for the rest, and there was a mad rush at the gate ... all to watch a couple dozen soccer players going through rudimentary drills (which I soon relayed to my son, a midfielder for the local Arizona Fury Boys 97 United.)
 After convincing security I really was a media member I was sent the long way around to Gate 1 - the long way meaning a journey 3/4 of the way around the stadium - where I picked up my credential, got some help from a friendly security guard who walked me back toward my original door rather than forcing me to walk around the canyon dividing Gates 1 and 3 (literally - this is where they roll back the retractable grass field) and high-tailed it back to my car before someone noticed I was holding a press credential and free entry.
Most remarkable of all? Early estimates are for more than 30,000 people to make their way to the stadium to watch the game - a friendly match that doesn't count in the league standings. An exhibition.
But if tonight's any indication it will be one wild, energetic evening at the stadium tomorrow evening.
P.S. One tangential stadium naming note. During tonight's Patriots-Vikings broadcast on the Vikings radio network, the play-by-play man re-christened the San Francisco 49ers new field (nee Candlestick Park, 3Com Park and Monster.com Stadium) as 3-Com-dlestick Park.
Not bad.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes |
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Oct. 30, 2006 - Hold the Cotton Candy |
Though you'd never know it, this is my third attempt at this entry. I downloaded Mozilla Firefox this morning to see what everyone's been talking about with tabbed pages, and there's been a minor learning curve to deal with.
I ended up skipping the midway games, the pseudo-meats on a stick and the ever-present cotton candy and sat out this week's Carnival of Real Estate for the first time in more than a month. There were several reasons - every writer goes through lulls where the words don't come nearly as easily as usual; when I was a full-time reporter this was far more a tragedy than now when I'm a writer second and real estate agent first. But the main reason has been a malaise caused by further contemplation on the nature of the blog - this blog, in particular.
The basic question is whether my blog is of interest primarily to consumers at large or to real-estate professionals, and to whom I really want to direct my attention. Along with that is the question of who is in my audience now, and who do I want in my audience as time goes on. Ultimately, I want this to be a center of discussion and education both for the general public and for my peers (clearly without me doing all the teaching) but I am not always sure this is the path I'm on, especially as I read my previous posts. Do the topics appeal to both worlds? I'm not certain.
For example, the discussion surrounding the cost of using a buyers' agent clearly impacts the public. But I'm not sure your average consumer is as concerned with these things as those in the profession seeking a competitive edge through pricing of their services. Likewise, my thoughts on the MLS, what it really is and what its future may be, again may interest my fellow agents more than the public at large even thought I believe it's educational for the average seller to realize the MLS is not some magnificent selling machine.
As you read this week's top Carnival entries at Jim Duncan's Real Central VA, I believe you'll see some similar themes and internal debates over what real estate blogs are today and what they should be in the future.
For example, "transparency advocate" Pat Kitano muses on the current state of real estate blogging and wonders whether the public is seeing the debates that would help them. And this week's Carnival winner, Jim Cronin of the Real Estate Tomato, discusses sharing best practices in general (and mentions his blogging mentors) - a topic which translates easily outside of real estate.
Familar topics also are discussed, including the need for agents to bring more to the table than MLS access.
As for Tobey and I, we'll probably be back in the swing in a day or so. It's an easy formula -- start with some smaller posts, then move on from there. My efforts also will be aided this week as I add to my blogroll and pass along some of the better sites I'm seeing out there.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes |
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Oct. 28, 2006 - Playing catch up ... |
The good folks over at sellsius have posted video of the panel discussion involving Realtor.Com's Allan Dalton and Zillow.com's Lloyd Frink at the California Association of Realtors' annual convention. Well worth a look ...
Speaking of Zillow, they were hit with an FTC consumer complaint earlier in the week, filed by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). According to the NCRC's press release:
“Zillow is placing the American dream of homeownership at risk for countless working families,” says John Taylor, NCRC President and CEO. “For a company that represents to consumers that they are the ‘Kelley Blue Book of Homes,’ this is a very dangerous situation. We call upon the FTC to intervene and ensure that Americans receive accurate appraisals and valuation information to protect the single most important investment of their lives: their home.”
You can read the actual complaint here.
For other reaction, check out these posts:
Sellsius - Zillow Zapped with FTC Consumer Complaint
Columbus Best Blog - Complaint to FTC Consumers Zillowed
Roberta Murphy - Zillow Gets Zinged
You also can see sellsius' follow-up conversation with the NCRC here.
And last but certainly not least, another blog worth checking into is Todd Tarson's MOCO Real Estate News, where we learn there is more to Mohave County than being the Valley's lifeline to Vegas.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes |
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